Taking stock of the Christmas inventory

By Brent Lancaster / Times-News

Published: Thursday, December 20, 2012 at 04:49 PM.

So it looks like it’s three days until Christmas.

How did that happen?

Every year, around the week of Thanksgiving, I put together in my mind a list of all the things I’m going to do during the holiday season and how magical it’s going to be. After all, I really love Christmas.

Then before I know it it’s Christmas Eve and I feel fortunate to have bought gifts and showed up at my parents’ house bathed and shaven.

I always envision a December full of Christmas parties, baking cookies and watching all the holiday movies on network television curled up in front of a fire with a cup of hot cocoa.

Doesn’t happen that way, at least not for Brent.

In fairness to me, I have to work a job that is anything but slow around Christmas. I have young children who are pretty time-consuming.

Every year, around the week of Thanksgiving, I put together in my mind a list of all the things I’m going to do during the holiday season and how magical it’s going to be. After all, I really love Christmas.

Then before I know it it’s Christmas Eve and I feel fortunate to have bought gifts and showed up at my parents’ house bathed and shaven.

I always envision a December full of Christmas parties, baking cookies and watching all the holiday movies on network television curled up in front of a fire with a cup of hot cocoa.

Doesn’t happen that way, at least not for Brent.

In fairness to me, I have to work a job that is anything but slow around Christmas. I have young children who are pretty time-consuming.

And we did go to the Jamestown Christmas parade and went to see Santa. We’ve put up a tree and gone out at night to ride around and see lights. But some days it seems there’s not time to do much more to get into the Christmas spirit than watch the commercials on television.

I have a wish list. Aside from a list of gifts I want, I have a list of things I want to do during Christmas. When I have the time.

I’m really tired of the term “bucket list” so I’ll just refer to it as Brent’s Christmas Inventory.

■ Go out caroling. I used to go caroling when I was a kid. I haven’t done it since the first George Bush was in the Oval Office. I will, of course, need to go with a large group so no one will actually hear me singing.

■ Dress up as Santa Claus. You can really tell the difference between a man in his 60s with white hair, a real beard and a bit of belly to him and some young guy with a fake beard.

I don’t claim that I would be a particularly good Santa, but I would bring a lot of joy to the table if nothing else.

■ Go to New York City for Christmas. I haven’t been to New York much and never at Christmas. It looks like a lot of fun.

■ Do more Salvation Army bell ringing. I used to do it at least a couple of times a year. Then I stopped. I need to get back to it. Nothing does more to get me in the Christmas spirit.

■ Throw a Christmas party at my house. It will be epic, I swear.

■ Make some crafts. My grandmother used to make sets of three wise men with fabric and empty beer bottles (always Michelob because of the way they are shaped. It was up to the rest of the family to get her the empties). When she was in a nursing home she made sleigh bells with red and green yarn and the paper pill cups her nurses brought her. Those bells still hang on my Christmas tree.

What I make won’t be anywhere near as good as what she used to make, but I still need to try.

■ Participate in a live Nativity. I’m assuming baby Jesus won’t be an option and I don’t feel worthy of Joseph. A wise man perhaps?

So next year, I swear, I will start on some of the things on this list. I just might need to start in August to get it done.

City editor Brent Lancaster can be reached at blancaster@thetimesnews.com or 336-506-3040. Follow him at twitter.com/tnbrentl.